Electrically commanded surfaces for namatic liquid crystal displays

Electrically commanded surfaces (ECS) is a liquid crystal display concept whereby the switching of the alignment layer, which is driven by an electric field applied across the layer, is further transferred to the bulk liquid crystal material via elastic forces. This work presents the electro-optic response of a sandwich cell with alignment layer made of siloxane-based ferroelectric liquid crystal polymer, representing the ECS. The bulk liquid crystal material of choice was an in-house nematic mixture comprising fluorinated liquid crystalline compounds with negative dielectric anisotropy (<0). We report a distinct linear electro-optic response, arising from the field-induced in-plane switching of the nematic which in turn is mediated by the ECS.